The first meeting has taken place in what are expected to be difficult and protracted pay talks between Government negotiators and representatives of the Garda Siochana.
All ranks are being represented in the talks, at which gardai are seeking to have the PCW (Programme for Competitiveness and Work) pay round reopened in the hope of negotiating an extraordinary pay increase in line with the 17 per cent for nurses earlier this year.
The staff association for the 8,000 officers of garda rank - the Garda Representative Association (GRA) - has indicated that its opening demand will be for a 25 per cent rise under the PCW.
GRA members expect a settlement close to that of the nurses. The leadership has stated that only an award in line with the nurses' settlement will be acceptable.
Word has already circulated that the negotiators expect a £50a-week pay rise across the board. However, this prospect appears to conflict sharply with the stated Government line on PCW negotiations.
In his Budget speech the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, spoke in strong terms of arresting public pay sector drift, pointing out that the nurses' pay award had added 1.5 per cent to the 1997 public sector pay bill.
He said the PCW pay round needed "to finally be put to rest" and it was "essential" that the remaining PCW local bargaining cases be resolved within the PCW norm.
Mr McCreevy said: "The groups involved (gardai, Defence Forces and some local government workers) cannot expect to follow higher settlements secured on the basis of certain unique considerations by nurses and a small number of other groups."
GRA negotiators expect the pay talks to be difficult and that gardai might again have to resort to public demonstration, like the march to the Dail earlier this year.
The opening of the talks was welcomed yesterday by the next biggest Garda staff association, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI).
Its president, Mr John Durcan, said: "We hope it will not be too long before we have a satisfactory settlement."
The talks opened yesterday under the chairmanship of Mr Declan Brennan, former secretary of the Department of Education.
They begin as the internal dispute which split the GRA has been settled. The GRA negotiating team will include two members of the former break-away association, the Garda Federation.
In the next few months elections will be held within the GRA and a new constitution will be ratified at its annual conference in May.
While most of the 2,100 Garda Federation members who left the GRA in 1994 - in protest at the original PCW pay settlement agreed by its leadership - are expected to rejoin the GRA, a considerable number of Dublin gardai are said to have indicated they have no intention of rejoining.